# Ryanair charity calendar generates complaints

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2007/12/17/ryanair-charity-calendar-generates-complaints/
- Published: 2007-12-17T11:11:37+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

And you thought it was just the nude (or near nude) charity calendars that raised
eyebrows…

A calendar being sold by low-cost airline [Ryanair](http://www.ryanair.com) to raise
funds for Irish charity [Angels Quest](http://www.angelsquest.ie) has attracted 
complaints for depicting bikini-wearing female flight attendants. The Institute 
for Women in Spain said that it would be complaining to Irish and EU authorities.

The 2008 calendar, called ‘the Girls of Ryanair’, depicts 12 female flight attendants
posing inside and outside Ryanair aircraft. It is being sold for £5.

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“We’re not talking about morals or nudity here, it’s simply how women are portrayed,”
said institute spokeswoman Maria Jesus Ortiz said. “If there had been men in the
calendar, I’m sure there would have been no controversy.”

Ryanair’s defence of the charity calendar was robust, pointing out that the woman
posted voluntarily. Indeed, the airline is now thanking “the Spanish Moaners Organisation
Facua, whose latest whinge has sent sales of the Ryanair calendar through the roof”.

Ryanair’s Head of Communications, Peter Sherrard, indicated that the airline was
not just helping raise funds for charity but also demonstrating its support for 
human rights, or rather one particular right. “Ryanair is defending the right of
women to take their clothes off”, he said in a [news release](http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/news.php?yr=07&month=dec&story=gen-en-171207)
today. I’m still checking the small print on the [Universal Declaration of Human Rights](http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html)
for that one.

Although online stocks of the calendar are now sold out – “stocks stripped bare”,
was the Ryanair headline – people could still try to buy them “on our flights where
they’ll have the added advantage of being looked after by Europe’s best and sexiest
cabin crew.”

So, form a queue, all those charities interested in a charity of the year partnership
with Ryanair. And, ladies first, of course.